It's You

Chapter 8

Gaon was standing in an office, eyes glued to the TV displaying Yohan's face brightly and the damming words written beneath it. There was a woman with him, though Gaon didn't recognize her, anything but the TV and the reporter's voice a blur.

"Judge Kang who had been arrested for murder is dead. Judge Kang Yohan was held in custody at Jungbu Detention Centre where it seems he was stabbed by an unknown assailant..."

Judge Kang.

Kang Yohan.

Dead.

Barely keeping upright, he couldn't tear his eyes from the screen, unwilling to believe even a single word coming from the reporters' lips.

Kang Yohan couldn't be dead.

Feeling the world crash and burn around him, Gaon shut his eyes, willing himself to keep the scream clawing in his throat inside and the tears burning in his eyes away.

It was his fault. He had lost the chance to make everything right....

With a scream on his lips, he shot upright, fingers twisted into the heavy blanket surrounding his aching body. The shooting pain through his middle was ignored in favour of hysterically looking around the foreign room for Yohan.

Yohan couldn't be dead.

Gaon couldn't have imagined the man coming to his rescue in the hospital, he couldn't bear the thought of it all having been an illusion. He didn't remember anything but Yohan and now the news of his death, and Gaon's crushing feeling of despair at them. What was going on? What if he had only been dreaming about seeing Yohan again because his mind had given him the sight, he held dearest? What if this was the first time he woke after the accident?

A pitiful noise sounded through the room and nearby Gaon, but he couldn't seem to find anyone, no matter how many times his eyes roamed over the room. And the sound just wouldn't stop, rising in hight and desperation, a cry for help if Gaon had ever heard one. A cry like the world was ending in fire and ashes. A cry for... for Yohan.

The room door was flung open, a sudden déja vu of the first time he woke in the hospital and cried for help, and just like back then, Yohan hurried inside wearing the same clothes and same thunderous expression that promised pain to anyone but Gaon. The unbearable sound stopped instantly and Gaon crawled out from under the covers, launching himself at the man, and groaning in pain as his ribs collided with the other's chest harshly. Though these things were all ignorant in the face of the man himself being alive. Arms wound around the other's neck, Gaon buried his face into Yohan's chest, tears bursting free, and wails gasped against Yohan's shirt.

"You're not dead. You're not dead. You're not dead," he sobbed repeatedly, body shaking from the terrifying nightmare.

Warm arms embraced him, a gentle hand caressing the back of his head, only resulting in a second round of sobs wrecking Gaon's body.

Yohan was alive. It had been only a nightmare. Yohan was alive.

"Gaon-ah."

Like the times before his name from Yohan's lips felt like salvation and Gaon clung to eat with all his might, slumping into the other further in fear this too was just a dream.

He had no time to react before being lifted by Yohan, carefully being carried back to the bed and with a soft sigh being placed down. At least until he refused to let go, keeping his arms wrapped around Yohan, compelling the older to join him on the bed and pull him into his lap like he had done earlier, this time with Gaon turned toward him.